The Lord Bishop of Winchester asks what evidence the government has to demonstrate that asylum-seekers returned to the Democratic Republic of Congo will be safe.
Her Majesty's Government (HMG) relies on the findings of successive asylum and immigration tribunals that there is 'no evidence that returned, failed asylum-seekers to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as such face a real risk of persecution or serious harm or ill-treatment'. Since this finding was reiterated in December 2008, the Border Agency has been regularly returning refused asylum-seekers to the DRC.
HMG has no programmes or resources to follow up returned asylum-seekers to discover how they have, in fact, been treated on return. But there is a great deal of evidence, gathered by those working with and in support of DRC asylum-seekers in many parts of the UK, that contradicts these findings of successive asylum and immigration tribunals.
Sometimes those being returned are identified by their British escorts to one or another of the police or immigration forces at Ndjili Airport, Kinshasa. Sometimes 'authorities' there identify them immediately. Unless they have significant funds to pay for their safety, some are removed straight away into custody, separated from their families, and taken to this or that prison where they are ill-treated. Others are allowed to leave the airport, but are 'picked up' later if their addresses, or the addresses of relatives, are known. Women especially, but men too, are frequently subjected to sexual assault and rape. Children may be separated from their families – and children being returned may not speak a Congolese language if they have been born in the UK; and they will have no resistance to indigenous diseases, and no medication against them.
It is often claimed in the UK that as most (but by no means all) of the still-continuing violence and disorder in the DRC is in the east of the (vast) country, people will be safe when returned to the capital, Kinshasa, on the western edge of the DRC. But 'We Will Crush You, The Restriction of Political Space in the DRC', published by Human Rights Watch in November 2008, catalogued the politically motivated disorder and violence that continues rife in Kinshasa, about which those who work with Congolese exiles and asylum-seekers in the UK have known for some time. Elections are again looming in the DRC; and there is good recent evidence that Kinshasa remains a dangerous place for anyone whom one of a number of agencies may see as opposed to the current regime.
Furthermore, since the attack in London in October 2006 on President Kabila's then chief of staff, She Okitundo, the UK Congolese community is widely viewed by 'authorities' in Kinshasa as hostile to the DRC government; and individual returned Congolese are frequently viewed in this light.
There is, too, a good deal of evidence that at least some of those being returned are treated not only with disrespect but with violence, and that children have been separated from their parents, while being transported to UK airports for return to the DRC, and some have been ill-treated in the aircraft. The Border Agency generally uses charter flights, where there are no ordinary passengers to witness this ill-treatment.
In my view no-one, whatever their asylum status, should be returned to the DRC, while there remains a very strong likelihood that they will not be 'safe from harm' on or soon after their arrival.
This is the third time that I have asked a very similarly worded oral question on this issue; because no-one who works with Congolese asylum-seekers in this country, and has heard from them of their experiences when returned to the DRC, has found HMG's previous responses in the least respect credible or well-informed. I hope for better on May 17; and that the minister's brief will show clear signs of knowledge of the Border Agency's own country-of-origin information report on the DRC, last revised on June 30 2009, paragraphs 9.06-9.16 headed 'Abuses by the Security Forces', 'Arbitrary Arrest and Detention', and 'Torture'.
The Right Reverend Michael Scott-Joynt formerly retires as Bishop of Winchester at the end of May 2011. He was appointed Bishop of Winchester in 1995 having previously served as Bishop of Stafford from 1987.
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